


What Lurks in the Deep

by ghostwriter00797



Category: The Deep (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe--Smiling Finn stays with the Nekton family, Alternate Universe--The Nektons are pretty noticeably Not Entirely Human, Gen, Lemurians probably didn't look similar to humans, No Dialogue, at least not in my verse they don't, it's kind of ambiguous, no beta we die like men, somewhat unwillingly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 04:03:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17821520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriter00797/pseuds/ghostwriter00797
Summary: He's been fascinated by her since the day they first met, racing each other to a treasure that didn't really exist.[Too bad he never believed in superstition.]





	What Lurks in the Deep

Finn grew up hearing the tales of the sirens, the gods, the ghost ships and the vengeful men who had once manned them, but he’s never believed them. He respects the sea, like any pirate worth his salt, but he has never been wary of her depths. After all, it was just silly superstition and old wives’ tales. Scary stories to keep young children from drowning in the waves before they could learn to manage them.

(He only says _that_ in front of his father once, and never dares to again.)

Then he meets Fontaine Nekton and falls straight into everything he was ever warned about.

 

* * *

 

The first thing he notices is her eyes, vivid turquoise. The most obvious unnatural thing about her. When she looks at him, at anyone, it is the gaze of a predator. He flirts, steals her communicator, defensive without even realizing it. They cross paths again and again, get trapped together in a giant clam of all things, and Finn realizes something that he can’t exactly identify. After that, he finds himself unable to meet her eyes.

The second thing he notices is her body. Long legs, curves in all the right place, shapely rear, tousled hair always sparkling with dried sea salt, it’s everything a teenage boy would find attractive and more. Seeing her over and over ruins that. She’s not any less gorgeous, but Finn swears that her fingers are a little to long, teeth a little too sharp, hair a little _too_ gravity-defying, eyes a little too large to be normal. He stops looking for more than a few minutes at a time

The third and final thing he notices is how she moves in the water. When they first met, he could have watched her swim for eternity. Every move was the epitome of grace, every twist and turn calculated and efficient. Now… now he watches her and is reminded once again of the apex predators of the sea. Fontaine is in her element underwater, going deeper and holding her breath longer than any human being should ever be able to. He doesn’t even try to follow her down.

Finn never keeps his distance like his father insists he should. He flirts with Fontaine despite everything he notices, and she responds in kind. Their relationship is abrasive, odd, and probably a train wreck in motion, but he finds himself always gravitating back to her. And of course, by extension, her family. Her mother and father and brother who are just as unsettling as she is.

His father keeps more and more distance between the Dark Orca and the Arronax after each successive meeting with their only competent rivals. Questioning him about it never ends well, and Finn ends up going along with it. Fontaine may be endlessly intriguing, but when his father puts his foot down, he _really_ puts his foot down. So Finn stays away until he can’t anymore.

 

* * *

 

He’s broken and bleeding and terrified, contacting the only other people he knows. The submarine she lives in appears within minutes, taking him aboard. Her family patches up his wounds, fits him for a wet-suit, makes him one of them. He looks at her parents and her brother and realizes that whatever she is, they are too. Still, the Nektons are his only hope of keeping the treasure out of his father’s hands.

That is not a comforting thought. 

 

* * *

 

Finn expects to stop his father, cure Fontaine’s, and then return to his family aboard the Dark Orca.

Oh, how naive he is.

She’s already sunk her claws into his heart, and she isn’t letting go.

He doesn’t even realize he’s back on the Arronax instead of the Dark Orca until they’re already moving. There’s a sinking feeling in his chest, and Finn _knows_ , then and there, that he will never be going back. Whatever Fontaine is--whatever the Nektons are, they aren’t human and they aren’t letting him go anytime soon.

Finn looks into four sets of seemingly kind eyes, something primal inside him screaming in terror, and wishes that he’d listened.

His father always warned him about the things that lurked in the deep.


End file.
